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MIgrating from K1000 os version 5.1 to 5.5 in 5 hours

Greetings friends,

One recent project was to get a client upgraded from 5.1x  to 5.5x on their  K1000
The original install was done 6 years ago, so they wanted to go from the rack mount box to running
on ESX 5.1 on VMware

I will skip over some minor  details here , but there are a few key points that could really help someone who's facing even a few of these steps.  

 I imagine this would also work if you had to go (for instance) from
5.4 to 6.2, but I have yet to confirm that.  Too many other irons in the fire right now.

Back in March 2014,  5.5.90548 was the latest rev of the OS, and because this client was   4 major versions behind on 5.1x,

I chose to run the upgrades on VM workstation 8.1  running on a PC.    I chose VM 8 workstation because I found that newer versions of VM workstation would not support running the old 5.1 virtual machine that KACE pointed me to.   I had to try 3 different PC's for this  because Workstation 8 and K1000 version 5.1 were acting squirrely.  Don't ask , too many hours figuring that out.  Lots of ram is going to help with speed too.

To start with,   I did a sandbox network, and found that 5.1x agents *would* connect up via AMP  to a 5.5x  K1000 server.

That one result  argued for running through the 4 major  OS upgrades  "offline" on a PC, instead of upgrading the rack mount K1000 through 4 versions.   In addition, I didn't have confidence in upgrading the old K1000 through 4 upgrades, because of disk health, and/or  if one of the 4 OS upgrades failed, I'd have to back out and restore, and lose time.

So here's the bare bones version of how this went.  

=======================================================

Purchase 5.5  or latest version of  virtual KBOX OVF, and licensing from Dell/Kace

Install and license  the OVF  on new VM instance on ESX.    Use  a temp IP address on same subnet

as your existing production K1000 rack mount unit.

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Prep 5.1 production KBOX  before migration of server DB's.

Remove current GPO objects related to install of 5.1 agents  from AD

Remove any large  self service binaries from software library .  These reside in  the DB,

Which will take time for migration.  Smaller DB’s upgrade faster!

Clean up old PC and user accounts and unneeded software jobs.   Run a few good backups via FTP.

Notify all IT Staff of upgrade day, kbox will be offline for at least ½ day.


 

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Conversion strategy

Install KBOX 5.1x virtual machine  on a VM 8.x workstation instance running on a PC , and license it temporarily.  I had to try 3 different PC's before I found one that would support VM workstation running kbox 5.1x and not freeze up.  Don't ask!.

Use a temporary IP address on the PC running Workstation 8.x


Import production data set from live kbox running 5.1 into temp VM 8 workstation running the exact same  5.1 version KBOX OS  on temp IP . Use binary mode FTP to transfer files to and from KBOX instances if they are over 1.5 gigs.

Reboot, login, and confirm inventory, current data, licensing, and AD integration

Run through 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5 upgrade versions on temp VM workstation.  You will need to contact KACE to find out which of the many versions on the download site are suitable  for  this process.  Some minor versions of the K1000 OS won’t work for this process.   Fun stuff!


 Test your   now upgraded 5.5 version  running on the PC  on VM workstation for login, SSL certs, and AD integration,  etc.     You now  should have a clone of the rack mount production K1000 box, but on a different IP address, of course.

Back up the upgraded 5.5x version of the DB on the PC.

Run a VM snapshot on the PC in case of fubar.

Bring up the  VM workstation console on  your PC, login to the KBOX console,  login , konfig/konfig, and run netdiag

Then  run  this command krestore createbackup

***This  refreshes the internal DB’s on the VM instance  to match the  OS version .  Will take 45 minutes or so***.  This is a critical step.

FTP   those refreshed files to a new folder on the same PC you just ran the Krestore createbackup on.

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VM Server work:

Login to the ESX server and run a VM snapshot in case the following goes fubar.

Make FTP writable  on your   VK1000 running on ESX 5.x  before starting so we can delete all backup files,  to get ready for krestore backup commands.  ( we will run those  later  on the VM server console.)

Then go back to the PC, using FTP (Filezilla) on the PC,  log in to the future production server K1000 running on ESX,  delete all existing backup files.   You must do this using FTP.     FTP login/pass are covered on KB articles on Kace website.

Now  at the PC,  FTP the new files that were created from running “Krestore createbackup”  from the PC  up to the VK1000 server.

Login to the VM server console on the  ESX   VK1000 , using konfig/konfig.  Run netdiag

Run krestore backup

Wait 20 minutes, server should reboot, DB’s should load up.

Test that you have current data that matches what you had on the laptop, and on the old server.

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Swap IP  implementation

Take old KBOX 5.1 offline  by changing the IP address.    This step will have to be performed at the rack mount box console in your  NOC, because the ip address change won’t work with the web gui.     Don't ask why!.

 Wait til the old machine is up and responds to a ping for the new address.

Using the web gui, dhange IP address of your new K1000 Virtual KBOX 5.5  on the ESX server  to same IP as the old rack mount box and , reboot

Test login, AD integration,

Install SSL certificate, test DNS login via  your FQDN. 

The SSL cert does not come across in the DB, it’s in the OS, and can be retrieved from KACE techs via tether for a charge if you don't have it to restore to the new ESX instance.

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Client push and implementation

Download newest agents, etc,, etc.

Push new 5.5 agents over 5.1 agents via AD authentication if possible.  May have to run a GPO or PSexec job to uninstall the old agents, before pushing from new VK1000.

I wrote a Kscript that would force this upgrade live, will post that later if I get a chance.

check that AMP  connector is live, (computers should show green in inventory).  I have tested  pushing 5.5 agents over 5.1 , and it works fine, new 5.5 agents do connect

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Backup and followup

Set up FTP backup job, similar to old KBOX 5.1 for dumping *.gz files (databases) to \\server\share.

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Set up LDAP import on schedule weekly to import new users.   Mapping of LDAP Fields will need assistance from KACE to set this up/

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Good luck!  Took me quite a few hours of testing to get this right, but client site was only
down for 5 hours, all reports, KB articles, users, prefs were preserved.



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